More On Mobile Payments:

"The fact is, these devices are ubiquitous, people lose them a lot, they might give them to their children or others to use," says Susan Grant, director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "There are a lot of security issues here that need to be considered."

Making point-of-sale purchases with your phone safely requires being willing to take a few simple steps, including protecting your phone with a PIN and being careful about using public Wi-Fi, Grant says.

But even if users are careful, it's possible for the companies who work together to provide those payments to botch things and leave consumers vulnerable.

"There's always a concern about the security of the entities that hold your payment information," Grant says. "Handset providers and operating system providers and mobile payments providers all have a role to play in providing good tools for consumers to use to safeguard the information on their devices."

In fact, the ID theft protection company LifeLock recently removed its mobile wallet product from app stores and wiped the customer data it held over security concerns.

If any of that makes you squeamish, you might want to hold off.

2. How concerned are you about privacy?

The only thing companies love more than their customers' money is their information, and mobile payments can serve up plenty of it.

"You have a lot more players in a transaction here than when you use some sort of payment card or cash at a point of sale," Grant says.

"You've got the operating system, you've got the mobile payment platform, even the handset manufacturer -- you've got lots of other parties involved in making mobile payments possible who could conceivably get information from your mobile device, and it could give merchants and others more information than they've ever had before about consumers," she says.

There are probably a lot of consumers who couldn't care less about whether their favorite burrito chain knows they prefer guacamole to sour cream, but if you're the kind who gets creeped out by big businesses having your number, take note.

3. How much do you hate waiting in line and/or human interaction when you buy something?

Mobile ordering can be a major perk of buying things with your smartphone, depending on which app you use.

For instance, PayPal's app supports phone-based ordering at some restaurants.

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